First grow - FastBuds Stardawg on the cheap

I made an infirmary post in the newbie section about poor Bruce. I was excited about that one and I'm sad it's not taking off.

Update: The consensus response from my "how am I killing my plant" post seems to be that i should raise my rh but stop worrying about it.

I'm overdue for an update. Pics are at day 20 and 21 from sprout for Stardawg, with Banner 3-4 days behind.

I worked hard to get the humidity up and stable over the weekend. It's one disadvantage of growing in an open space: controlling humidity is a lot tougher and required, at least for me, purchasing a cool mist room humidifier. It's not as effective as the classic heat humidifier, I think, but it doesn't raise my canopy temps.

The plants responded well and their leaves seem more supple. Banner is still smaller than a Bic lighter at almost three weeks but leaves and nodes are at least growing.

When I'm gone in the afternoon and the sun is out, I take them out from under the HID to place them in a sunbeam. Banner especially seems to love this.

Yesterday, at day 21, I made the decision to top Stardawg at the fourth node. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Pic of carnage enclosed.

The fancy, expensive soil I'm using was supposed to make these plants shoot up like rockets according to the guy at the hydro store (yeah, I know). Since I've got a lot of space under my light still, I'm soaking a Barney's Farm Glue Gelato promo seed and germinating it in some shitty old used potting soil with a bit of the fancy stuff mixed in as an experiment. (Thanks again, @George Seeds, for all the promos you do.) Might give me an indicator of whether the fortified soil is too hot for my little autos at 100 strength.

I'll start supplementing with half strength Calmag at next watering.

First three are the setup and plants at day 20, last are topping Stardawg at 21 and the tiny but progressing Banner canopy.

Stardawg keeps going and going, not stressed at all after being topped. This pic taken a couple of days later.

It's day 20 now for Banner and I have to conclude the soil was too strong for young Bruce. I can change my methods moving forward but I think it's safe to stop expecting this little one to Hulk Out.

Day 28 for Stardawg and she's still small but I'm just starting to see pistils on the shoots in the top node.

I started bending the plant a bit over the weekend and it's now held down by a single tie to even the canopy. Larger leaves are tucked under new branching to allow the new branches to grow.

Banner is still, well, stuck in childhood. I might have nothing to lose by repotting in a less intense soil at this point.

Mate the auto in a big pot ye the other if its photo that’s why work up pot size autos final pot but u gonna loose yield and overall vigorous growth goin strate large pot with photos you want solid dense root balls built up ov lots ov feeder roots not flimsy root mass you will get would you put a child in his adult shoe size

MLB said:

Mate the auto in a big pot ye the other if its photo that’s why work up pot size autos final pot but u gonna loose yield and overall vigorous growth goin strate large pot with photos you want solid dense root balls built up ov lots ov feeder roots not flimsy root mass you will get would you put a child in his adult shoe size

Click to expand...

It is generally recommended to start autos in the final pot due to the limited time to recover from transplant stress before the flowering cycle begins. At most, one transplant is possible.

I'm a big fan of growing on the cheap. I'm excited to see how your equipment turns out for you.

My bad thought the banner a photo never new both autos

There's been quite a bit of drama since last week's post.

Last week, I switched out the MH bulb at the 150w ballast setting for an HPS at 250. The Banner shot up quickly, though it's still small. Stardawg reacted well, too, at first.

Then my humidity problems quickly came back. Moving the light the greater distance away, combined with the additional heat, was no match for the humidifier in the open room. I could barely keep it above thirty by this week. The whole room is full of wet towels and awkward dishes of water on radiators. Still nope, and the plants started to look a bit crunchy.

Stardawg also showed signs of what I thought had to be insect damage: parts of leaves found eaten away each morning. I dusted with more diatomaceous earth and no luck.

On top of all that, Stardawg is just beginning to flower so this was a bad time to start encountering problems and changing things up.

I moved the plants to a roughly 1 x 1 closet space. The humidifier is in with them and rh is above fifty again. And now I'm beginning to realize that you either have humidity issues or heat issues in an apartment like mine with HID. Low eighties is the best I can do in this new setup, with some frequent airings out, and I've been able to keep things below 85.

The plant damage culprit turned out to be my cat. I tied Stardawg's branches up today and noticed that it has finally begun to give off a lovely smell. Sadly, kitty thinks so, too. I've had to barricade the closet. If I leave the door a crack, he'll squeeze his body in and wreak havoc. He's lucky I'm a pacifist.

You'll see some leaf damage in the photo due to poor feline conduct, as well as some suspicious white on some fan leaves. That's the de. Stems had just been tied. Humidity levels also likely had an impact, but at least I got that fixed before flower.

I will admit it was pretty damned demoralizing moving my nice open grow into a hot, unpleasant and tight closet at first. It took some joy out of the process and watering and monitoring the plants can be a real pain in the ass. I think I've recovered from the disappointment and I'm pressing on.

Not gonna lie, this past week has been pretty demoralizing. I'm about to kill this poor plant.

The Nectar 4 soil feeds for three weeks, so it isn't surprising that nute deficiencies are presenting themselves. I've been watering with a bit of Cal mag and added half strength bloom nutes to the watering before last (I don't add cal mag if the bloom nutes are already in). That hasn't cut it - they still need to stretch and grow and leaves are yellowing quickly. I never purchased grow nutes so I went and picked up a cheap tomato feed from the local big box with a decent but modest nitrogen level. I've sprinkled it on the soil for Stardawg and Banner. I did this yesterday, so any recovery isn't there yet.

I also ordered a 6L large room humidifier, spent another fifty. The problems since switching to 250w from 150w have been huge and ongoing. My humidifier is supposed to work for a small to medium sized room but struggles in the 1x1 closet. There's either a temp emergency or a humidity emergency, but often both. Venting out hot air also vents the moisture. The temp/humidity situation in my living room is better than the closet much of the time, and when it's near watering time is terrible (lost it and bought the new humidifier when I saw 105 F with humidity 15, albeit sitting on dry soil and temporarily exposed to the light ).

The ugly brown burn marks in both plants' leaves result from my magical thinking in misting the hell out of the plants and hoping the droplets wouldn't burn. It was bad, y'all. Stardawg's soft leaves have been crispy the last week and no amount of additional wet towels and misting was fixing the problem. I blew out a bulb when I misted too close to it.

In happy news, Banner's really finally recovering well otherwise, just a bit behind. Its leaves are softer and better-textured than Stardawg, which looks like a hot mess. In other happy news, I think Stardawg will be okay with some nute supplémentation and environnemental fixes. Amazingly, she hasn't hermed and continues to build bud sites, just isn't stretching that much. For anyone reading this long rant, Stardawg is definitely as advertised by the breeder: a plant that absorbs a lot of mistakes and crises.

So thanks for reading this two volume novel. When my new humidifier gets here I'll be moving the plants back to my living room where temps are manageable. I have no idea how people grow in closets with 400w without burning the place down; cheers to you all.

Tldr; closet temps and humidity were a shitshow so another humidifier purchase and move is in order; plants need Cal mag and some grow nutes at early bloom, don't mist plants too close to the light, exactly what you fear is going to happen will happen.

Now I just need to figure out what to do about that cat.

So, fuck, it's heat stress. Anyone reading probably already knew that. It's all over Stardawg.

Banner is still making new leaves and has time to recover. Stardawg really doesn't, so I guess it's just damage control from here and hope that it can still stretch enough for its lower bud sites not to be sitting on top of each other.

I took them out of the closet and have them back in the sunlit room without the HPS on yet. Locked the murderous cat in my bedroom.